The Child With Four Names
Names are important. Expectant parents peruse name lists on the internet for just the right one for their son or daughter. Biblical names often have great theological significance. For example, Elijah the prophet’s name means The Lord Is My God. You can’t get much more auspicious than that!
When it came to naming our grandson, Lucas, my son Tim and his wife Stephanie gave a nod to the heritage of both their families. Coughlin, of course honors the proud Irish history of my family. Lucas, which means bright in Greek, hopefully points to light and life in Jesus Christ. And Lucas's middle name, Quon, reminds us of his other grandfather's family name when they immigrated from China.
Names are important. They communicate what we want to see in a person's character. They also send a message to others.
Isaiah, the 8th century prophet who preached and prophesied in troubling and turbulent times, had two sons with prophetic names: Shearyashub (a remnant will return) and Maher Shalel Hash Baz (swift is the spoil).
But none of these names is as auspicious and mysterious as the Child who is to be born. Isaiah the prophet looks both at the immediate circumstances and the distant future in Isaiah 9:6-7. These verses are a cornerstone Messianic prophecy concerning a Child who came to save us.
This Child is born for us in our need and distress, Isaiah 9:6a
In Isaiah's day, God's people nervously peered over the walls of Jerusalem and saw their enemy everywhere. The dreaded Assyrians were about to capture the northern kingdom of Israel. They were now at the gates of Jerusalem. God’s people scampered to find a solution, to plan an escape without taking into account that God was already at work.
But God always initiates. He’s always out ahead of us. He’s anticipated our greatest need.
Eugene Peterson wrote in his book, The Jesus Way, "If you devise a plan of action that doesn't take into account God's activity, you are going to do the wrong thing... God's way of revealing himself to us and giving himself to us is Jesus."
But this Child is born for us. In his treatise Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became a Man), 11th century theologian Anselm of Canterbury maintains that only an infinite God can satisfy the enormous problem of sin. This Child came for us and died on our behalf: “God became man, and by his own death, as we believe and affirm, restored life to the world.”
This Child shoulders responsibility far beyond his age and strength, Isaiah 9:6b
Is there anything weaker and more helpless than a baby? There’s no comparison between, let’s say, a professional athlete and a newborn as to what they can physically accomplish.
Yet the prophecy says the Child functions as God in his providence and sovereignty over the universe.
The 16th century Lutheran Reformer Martin Luther said of the Baby: “He whom the world could not inwrap yonder lies in Mary’s lap”. In other words, we who have a hard time wrapping our minds around God now have concrete proof in the Child Jesus. Jesus did not become God through a process of growth. Instead, as the last phrase of Silent Night says, “Jesus, Lord at Thy birth”.
C. S. Lewis got it right in The Last Battle, “’Yes,’ said Queen Lucy. ‘In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.’”
The foretold Child has names only God can claim, Isaiah 9:6c
Jesus owns the names of God.
He’s the Wonderful Counselor: the infinite source of life-giving divine wisdom. James 3:17 describes its characteristics: “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.”
He’s the friend who values and encourages us. In John 15:15, Jesus calls his followers his friends. We are valued in his presence.
He’s the Mighty God: this Child possesses power and strength only God has. The Hebrew gibbor (mighty) includes character qualities like courage, honor, and valor beyond just physical strength. There’s nothing weak about this Child.
He’s the Everlasting Father: he demonstrates lasting care and concern only God can provide. Jesus tells us to address God in prayer as our Father (Matt.7:11). He also tells us that he and the Father are one (John 10:30-31).
He’s the Prince of Peace: an enduring well-being and flourishing that comes from God. Peace is not the absence of conflict but the restoring to health that which is sick and dying.
These four names serve as a frontal attack against all that keeps us from God. An all-out assault on sin and injustice. There is nothing passive about this Child.
God's active love incarnated in this Child will make certain his rule and reign of righteousness and justice through Messiah Jesus will be accomplished, Isaiah 9:7
There's an unlimited and ever-increasing supply of God’s rule and reign. It will be characterized by his attributes of justice and righteousness (cf. Ps. 89:14).
His zeal, that inner focused passion, spills out in action. It's a done deal. This Child will not remain a baby. He will, as Jesus, set things right.
C.S. Lewis, in his introduction to J.B. Phillips’ Letters to Young Churches: A Translation of the New Testament Epistles, writes about the paradox of the baby Jesus:
"Does this shock us? It ought not to, except as the Incarnation itself ought to shock us. The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant-woman’s breast, and later an arrested field-preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that he should be preaching in a vulgar, prosaic, and unliterary language. If you can stomach the one, you can stomach the other."
May we never lose our sense of wonder and astonishment that a Child has been born FOR us, a Son is given TO us! At Christmas, we often only think about what we get. Instead we need to see what we've been given. Then we will see the Light. Christ is coming, Christ has come, Christ is coming again.
The following link is to a performance of Isaiah 9:6-7 from George Frederich Handel’s oratorio, Messiah. It’s less than five minutes but puts to music the lofty words of these verses: